THE INCAS AND THEIR CONCEPT OF THE WORLD.

Since the Incas civilization arose from the highlands of the Andes Mountains in South America and their concept about the world was significantly different from the ones coming from the Old World.
They used a distinct variety of methods, from conquest to peaceful assimilation to incorporate a large portion of Western South America, centered on the Andean Mountain Ranges, including besides Peru, large parts of modern Ecuador, Western and South Central Bolivia, NorthWest Argentina, North and Central Chile, and a small part of Southern Colombia into a state comparable to the historical empires of Eurasia.
The term Inca means "Ruler." And they referred to their empire as Tahuantinsuyo, "the Four Corners of the World," symbolizing a group of four powers taken together. The empire was divided into four quarters whose corners whose corners met at the capital, Cuzco.
The name Cuzco is derived from the Quechua phrase "QusQu Wanka" ("Rock of the Owl"), related to the city's foundational myth of the Ayar siblings. The city is located on the Eastern end, its elevation is around 3,400m (11,200ft). The city was planned as an effigy in the shape of a puma, a sacred animal.
The Incas had no written language so they did not record their myths in writing. Instead they developed a high degree of understanding in things pertaining to the dream world, the world of the spirits. They developed a class of professionals storytellers and performers trained to recite the powerful words that transcended the physical world in order to teach the official state history entrusted to them from old, even before the creation of the World. Their myths taught significant truths within each cultural group that represented their specific landscape. All that is known from it, is based on what was recorded by priests, from the iconography on Incan pottery and architecture, and from the myths and legends that have survived time and is still active among the descendants that continue with their customs.
At the center of Inca religion and mythology was the worship of the Sun, believed to be the ancestral father of the Inca people. They were told that in the most ancient of times the earth was covered in darkness. Then, out of the cosmic waters of the Lake Collasuyo, the god Con Tici Viracocha emerged, bringing some humans with Him. Viracocha  then created the Sun (Inti), the moon, and the stars to light the World. Then, out of great cosmic rocks, Viracocha fashioned more human beings. Then He sent these people off into every corner of the World. He kept the male and female forces with him at the center of the universe, creating its replica in the earth, naming the city "Cuzco" meaning "the navel of the World."
The god Viracocha was in the form of a man without bones, and the forms or entities belonging to that dimension were numerous, and varying in their importance, but all in same way connected with Him and the world of man. Some were shape-changers, transformed from or into humans or natural species or into natural features such rocks, living something of their spiritual essence at the places where they were assigned.
They ancestral beings were described often as giant animals or people belonging to the dream world. Mountains, rivers, animals and plant species, and other natural and cultural resources came into being as a result of events which took place inside the world of shadows. The routes taken by this creatures in the dream world across the land were duplicated in a very sophisticated way along the Incan territory because they linked all the sacred sites into a web of a great spiritual power strong enough to maintain the union of the whole empire. It came from the ancestral time and was passed down to the next generations in a continuous line. The underlying relationships between the sacred places in the upper world and certain landscapes in the middle world were eternal. This was a spiritual identity, rather than a matter of mere and superficial belief. The spiritual world pre-existed the physical world and was designed to persist while the world of the humans was only temporary.
The Inca civilization learned from the stories recited to them that a society must not be human-centered but rather land centered, otherwise they forget their origin and purpose. It was understood that humans are prone to exploitative behavior if they are not constantly reminded that all of us are interconnected with the rest of the universe, that humans as individuals are only temporal in time, and past and future must be included in the perception of their purpose in this life.
The Inca empire and culture was largely destroyed by a race prone to exploitative behavior. They destroyed what they couldn't understand.
People come and go but the Land, and stories about the Land, stay. This is a wisdom that takes lifetimes of listening, observing and experiencing. Only then a deep understanding of human nature and their sacred environment is achieved. It cannot be described in physical terms. They are subtle feelings that resonate through the bodies of these people when talking and being with them, then these feelings can truly be appreciated. This is the intangible reality of the People of the High Andes that still exists.